Bury My Heart Next to Yours
by Musixeer
Summary: Hardship has defined them and their relationship. Beneath an air of professionalism is a deeply intertwined history of inspiration, pain, and trust that ties them together. It began in an isolated country house, bled into the sands of Ishval, and led to a fight to stop the Homunculi from destroying their country. Through it all, the connection between them became absolute devotion.
1. Chapter 1

It had been a good four hours since the well -prepared meal had been brought to him and he'd only absentmindedly picked from it as he'd studied for the next four hours, allowing that which had taken time and care to prepare to grow cold and much less appealing by the time he actually got around to eating it. After those four hours, ignoring his growing headache as he trudged down the stairs, Roy brought the now empty dishes to the sink and rinsed them of the encrustations of what remained of the once pleasant meal.

Setting them aside to dry, Roy then ran his hands under the water and bent low to splash some onto his face, relishing in the cooling effects of evaporation to help soothe his migraine. Bracing his hands on either side of the sink, he stood there for a few moments with his head hanging low as he allowed his mind a much needed moment to relax.

Heaving a deep sigh, he glanced up to observe the dark countryside outside the kitchen window. His gaze lingered on the rolling hills as the few remaining droplets fell from his face one after another. The sun had gone down some hours before, and he realized not for the first time that he never slept with the sun. His nights were always spent in studies, going through whichever task his mentor had set for him to accomplish before he could move on to the next. With a small start, however, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness outside, he realized there was something out on the grass. It took another moment before the figure finally started to take shape.

…

Was that…?

Pushing away from the sink with a sudden sense of purpose, Roy hurriedly dried his face with a hand towel and went to the back door where he left the warmth of the house for the relative coolness of the night air. Drawing closer he realized that, yes indeed, his mentor's daughter was sitting in the yard, perched on a blanket that she'd sprawled across the grass. Her gaze was fixed upward, and he wondered for a moment if she'd noticed his approach.

"What are you doing out here? It's almost midnight."

Roy barely kept his tone from sounding indignant, and the quiet girl turned her watchful gaze from the skies above to observe the young alchemist who stood a few paces from her. She was hardly surprised by his appearance and her ever perceptive eyes scanned him for a moment before she replied.

"Waiting," was all she said, purposefully vague and much to Roy's disapproval.

He let this show in the frown that creased his brow.

"Waiting for what?" he questioned further, allowing his dissonance towards this situation to show through the unamused tone of his voice.

She shouldn't be out in the dark when it was this late out. It could've simply been the fact he'd grown up in a place where crime was more common or perhaps her father's caution and paranoia bleeding over into his student, but Roy didn't like the idea of his mentor's young daughter sitting outside alone at night.

What if something were to happen?

Riza didn't answer and instead returned her silently humored gaze back to the stars above. 'Sit and wait if you want to find out,' she may as well have said, although the words themselves were left unspoken. Roy's frown deepened as he physically subdued a growl, hearing those words of hers without voice.

Stubborn girl.

But alas, he complied, seating himself on the blanket beside his mentor's quiet daughter. Even though she didn't turn to look at him, a small smile tilted Riza lips, pleased as she was with her small victory.

"It seems I have torn you away from your diligent studies," she stated simply, but it sounded a cheeky tease to Roy's ears.

He narrowed his eyes a fraction as he crossed his arms and let loose an indignant huff.

"Wouldn't be proper to leave you out here all by yourself. Master Hawkeye would have my head if he found out," the alchemist pointed out gruffly, letting his tone insinuate that it was a significant bother for him to do so.

"Always the gentleman, Mister Mustang."

There was a distinct undercurrent of honesty in Riza's words here as she saw through his snark to his concern, and Roy let his frown ease with his capture.

"Of course. I was raised well and to be an honest man."

He spoke earnestly, and his mentor's daughter smiled that subtle smile of hers again. Roy felt his frown vanish completely at this.

A few moments passed in silence, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary jumping out to grab his attention, and Roy found himself locating all the constellations he could off of the top of his head-not that he was an expert in astrology. He was currently up to three, but the stars looked so different from this house outside the city, were many more in number than in Central, that he found the task a tad more difficult.

Beside him, Riza's gaze was turned ever upward, and Roy found himself wondering if she were looking for them too. Or was she able to simply look at the stars for the marvel they were without searching out patterns? Odd how two people sitting right beside each other could view the things around them so differently, he mused briefly to himself.

"Do you know how many there are?"

The voice of his mentor's daughter cut into the young alchemist's thoughts, and he blinked once for his mind to catch up and dropped his now confused onyx eyes to her.

"Stars?" he asked, more because he knew he couldn't even begin to imagine their number.

Riza nodded, her eyes not once straying from the bespeckled heavens.

"I know it's a silly question because how could anyone? I sometimes find myself trying to count them, but I often lose my place or see ones I hadn't before and then I lose track," she added in a thoughtful undertone.

Roy paused, not entirely sure what he was to do with this information. She tried counting the stars? Stars, he knew, were both dying and being born every moment, so counting their number would be an ever changing thing. At best, you could only get an approximation or a range of numbers, and you would be lucky if you could manage to pinpoint even that. But, then he reminded himself that Riza was likely talking only of the stars they could see. Observing the shining specs above them, he knew it wouldn't take long for one to wonder if they had missed one or counted one twice.

"I don't know how many there are. I've never thought to try and count them," Roy finally answered, drawing Riza's silently curious gaze. "But, then again, maybe we aren't meant to know. Perhaps it's one of those things that's majestic in its mystery," he said with a light shrug.

Something akin to amusement flashed through the eyes of the girl sitting beside the young alchemist, and the small smirkish grin she wore portrayed similar emotions.

"An alchemist who wishes _not_ to know all," she mused briefly, leaving the rest unvoiced.

Yet, again he heard her silent words. 'How very... _unique_ of you, Mister Mustang.'

Roy knew she was teasing him again. Why did this girl seem to feel the need to do that? He only wished he was able to give as well as he got. She was able to find just the right button to push to inspire just the right amount of irritation in him that somehow kept him coming back to see if he could best her in this little game of wits. He would find her buttons at one point, of that he would make sure, and then he would be sure to push them whenever he got the chance as retribution-with interest, of course.

Roy was about to return her words, or rather those she left unspoken, with a snarky remark, but the words left him when he caught a glimpse of something in his peripherals. He turned his eyes upward towards the swift movement to see a small light streak across the sky from the north and disappear over the arc of the hills to the east, leaving a glowing trail in its wake.

A meteor.

Surprised by this turn of events, Roy looked to Riza.

"Is that what- " he began to ask, but he stopped himself when she held a finger to her lips, urging him to remain silent as her now smiling and twinkling eyes returning to the stars.

'Wait,' she silently said.

So, he did. Mirroring her position, Roy too scanned the skies above, watching in the general direction the meteor had come from. It wasn't too much longer before another glowing beam shot across the sky, splitting the darkness with its subtle yet vibrant light, a flickering trail following it as specs of the soaring chunk of mineral burned off in the outer atmosphere.

Two meteors? In such a short time? About twenty seconds, he'd counted it. Very rare indeed.

Roy became speechless of the odds when a third followed its two twins not five seconds later, and his mind was already telling him this was likely a meteor storm, not a meteor shower. With a shower, one would be lucky to see 20 meteors in an hour. But this, three in less than thirty seconds, was definitely a meteor storm.

The two teens, one nearing his third decade of life, watched in amazed silence the sight before them as another meteor flew, followed quickly by a celestial dancing partner. From there, Roy found that, whenever he would follow one trail of light across the sky and return his attention back to the north, another meteor would either follow quickly after or would already be making its progress across the bespeckled night sky. A beautiful sight, Roy marveled in something akin to reverence. The universe could truly be a beautiful thing.

A small chuckle drew his rapt attention, and Roy's gaze moved from the 'shooting stars', as people had inaccurately dubbed them, to the girl seated beside him. She wasn't looking at him. No, instead, her eyes were locked on the glowing objects above with more awe than he had ever seen a person, especially this particular person, wear.

Roy could see the lights flashing in her dark eyes, glowing streaks telling of the marvelous sight he was missing, but he couldn't bring himself to turn away to observe the extraordinary event. He couldn't turn away from the smile Riza wore, so earnest and bright, brighter than the flashing lights above, as she watched the meteors soar across the sky. Her smile was the largest and most joyous he'd ever seen from her and he was surprised to find it took his breath away more than the meteors did.

She at sixteen, Roy could honestly say Riza was a pretty girl, 'pretty' quickly bordering and blurring with her own subtle form of 'beautiful' as she matured. He had noticed it on several brief occasions before. They spoke very little, Roy and his mentor's daughter. He usually only found the time away from his studies to emerge from his room for only a few hours a day and Riza was usually taking care of the house and everything that entailed. Even so, he had always been one to appreciate elegance, something she gave off in a delicate yet somehow equipotently forthright manner.

But, Roy had never noticed it more than in that moment when the heavens above were alight with a rare, almost divine light. Some might say his mentor's daughter's nose was a tad too pointed or that her cheekbones were a little underpronounced. But, he didn't. No, he didn't see those things at all. He saw her smile, normally much more subtle, and the flecks of fire-colored orange in her eyes that made them look like liquid amber.

And as he watched her marvel at the universe, Roy then found his thoughts taking quite the detour, wondering to the military and his plans of joining. He had stopped himself when he'd turned eighteen months back, worried that he wouldn't be good enough for the military or that his convictions wouldn't be strong enough. That _he_ wouldn't be strong enough. Could he conquer these doubts well enough to join their armed forces and well enough again to do some actual good for this country?

Yes, he realized as he continued to watch his mentor's daughter, he could. He could learn to push his doubts aside, learn to be stronger just as he had learned the vast and painstakingly intricate art of alchemy. He could fight for his country and his family.

And he could fight to protect this girl.

Roy's mentor would without a doubt flay him alive were he to know just what was going through his student's mind, but the young alchemist didn't care. They were _his_ thoughts, and no one could take them from him.

Yes, once he had finished his studies, he would join the military. He would fight to protect those he cared about. He would fight for his aunt, for his sisters, and now for his mentor and Riza.

He would fight and die for this cause if he must.

Content with his decision, Roy returned his gaze to the sky, joining his mentor's silent daughter in watching the rare sight above them. And if his attention was sometimes drawn to the girl beside him instead, no one but himself was any the wiser.


	2. Difference of Perspective

He couldn't help but think that there was something else there. Something they had all missed.

It wasn't every day. After all, some days the stout military Lieutenant had been forced to rule the office with an iron fist to pick up the slack. Ed preferred to avoid the office as much as possible on those days. Well, more than usual, anyway. The Lieutenant could be a truly terrifying woman at times. She had this glare that promised the pain of suffering through purgatory ten times over, and, while Ed's logical mind tried to tell him it was impossible… something in that glare made him believe it. The only thing that could compare was one of those looks from Teacher. He shuddered at the thought of both women in the same room, although a standoff between those two women might very well be something he would pay to see to know just who would crumble first.

But, there were times, rare occasions, when Hawkeye's stern demeanor fell. And, most of the time, that shift in being was not directed at him or any of the other fifty million or so people who inhabited their fine country. While it was sometimes directed at he or his brother, her softer side most often showed itself to one man, one painstakingly insufferable man whose smug face Ed would love nothing more than to bloody and pound into the dirt: the bastard Lieutenant Colonel who gave him his orders on sparse occasion when necessity disallowed Ed and Al's search to continue for a time, such as having to help deal with Isaac McDougal.

The first time he'd seen it, he'd thought he'd started hallucinating after having stared at the pages of alchemical texts for so long. It had been maybe a year after he'd been inducted into the State Alchemists. After having chased down a bust lead, he and Al had once again begun searching through every book the military had on site that could possibly hold the key needed for them to get their bodies back.

Only when he looked up from his intensive studying did the eldest brother notice that it was after ten o'clock at night. They'd been there for nearly fifteen hours by then. Groaning in displeasure, he stretched his stiff muscles and rubbed his tired eyes, disapprovingly noting that he was no closer to a lead than he'd been fifteen hours ago. And, if Al's continued silence as he read through tome after tome was any indication, he was no closer to finding a clue either.

Glancing around the room to allow his eyes a small break—he could have sworn he saw ethereal floating print everywhere as he did so—Ed noted the room was nearly empty, vaguely recalling the goodbyes of most of Mustang's other subordinates hours before. A glance into the office to his left, doors left open again, revealed to him that the very Lieutenant Colonel had fallen asleep at his desk. Again. He was slumped over as though he had fallen asleep reading a document, a pen fallen from his limp hand.

The young alchemist snorted with not at all contained derision. How such a lazy bastard had ever managed to get anywhere in life, let alone the military, was beyond him. Al looked up at this, as did the room's other occupant. Second Lieutenant Hawkeye, seated across from the two brothers, had remained, although Ed noted that her stack of completed paperwork was somehow smaller than it had been the last time he'd noticed. Was she going through them a second time?

Whatever the case, at Ed's snort, she had glanced up and then followed his gaze to their shamelessly slumbering leader. Calm. She was far too calm for the two brothers' liking. A storm too could be calm before all hell broke loose. Quickly averting their gaze as the woman stood—no eye contact, no challenge!—the two boys tried to go back to their studying, both letting loose, although they would deny it to each other later, a small and undignified 'meep' of a sound.

As though she hadn't noticed, the Lieutenant entered Mustang's office and crossed to the other side of the desk. Ed hunched low over the book in front of him, fearing what would come next. As with Teacher, simply being in the same room, or even the adjoining one, was a terrifying experience. That glare…

Tense, he waited… and waited… until… nothing. Wary and very much confused, the young alchemist chanced a glance up.

There was no anger, no irritance over Mustang having dozed off lazily. And The Glare was nowhere to be seen. No, instead, Hawkeye stood next to him, leaning over slightly with a hand held lightly on his shoulder.

"Sir," she was saying quietly, shaking him a little. "Sir, wake up." The man stirred but did not wake. What was strange, however, was that his brows were knitted together, and he would mumble occasionally.

After a short pause, the Lieutenant seemed to loose a silent sigh, removing her hand from his shoulder and then taking the pen from his grasp. Oddly enough, this seemed to wake the lazy Colonel as he bolted upright as though having thought he was falling. His eyes scanned his surroundings and found the Lieutenant before his frame relaxed a little.

"Oh. Lieutenant," Mustang said in verbal recognition. He then ran a hand over his face as he loosed an almost relieved breath as the woman set the pen on his desk and then straightening the papers that had previously been his pillow.

"Come on, sir. That's enough for the day." Hawkeye continued, surprising Ed farther, as there was still a small stack of paperwork that had not yet been completed. He exchanged a glance with Al, interpreting the subtle flicker in the soulfire eyes within the helmet as a mirrored feeling of confusion.

"Mm," Mustang agreed as he slid his chair back and stood, stepping tiredly around his desk to retrieve his coat, hanging by his door. Hawkeye, in the meantime, reentered the room Ed and Al were in, the two quickly diverting their gazes once more in the hopes they would not be caught snooping. Again, it was like she hadn't noticed, or perhaps she was just pretending not to. She placed the papers she had been working on in an orderly pile before picking them up and retrieving her own coat from beside the door.

"Don't stay up too late," she suddenly spoke, and Ed glanced up once more, realizing she was speaking to him.

How long had it been since someone besides Al had said that to him? Reminded him that he needed sleep despite their important work? When his brain finally saw fit to remind him that he should respond, the young alchemist nodded.

"Right," he replied, not expecting the normally stern military lieutenant to show… not entirely a concern but more just an interest in his well being.

Mustang joined her at the door then, offering the two younger alchemists a stiff nod of farewell instead of his usual arrogant banter. The two brothers returned the gesture, and the officers departed forthwith, door closing behind them. Ed would have made a smart comment about him having fallen asleep during work hours, but, at seeing the haunted look in the man's eyes before he had averted them, the young alchemist couldn't bring himself to.

It would be years later before he would learn the reasons. Looking back, he realized the man had been having a nightmare, no doubt about the events of the Ishvalan Civil War, and she had known. After what Hawkeye had told him about the war, Ed wouldn't be surprised to find they still had nightmares; he might even be surprised if they _didn't_.

That incident should have been his first clue, that the group;s two leading officers had known each other for quite some time. The other bit of proof should have been that a woman like Hawkeye, skilled in both the field and the office, was voluntarily following a man like Mustang. He had no doubts that she could have been placed almost anywhere else should she so desire.

But, the proof, the real proof, had come on the Promised Day, when Mustang had tried to kill Envy. She had stopped him from killing the Homunculus, although that could simply be an example of her loyalty to him. But it had been what she had said. That was where the proof lay.

"When this battle is over, I'm going to end my life, and remove my secrets of Flame Alchemy from the world."

There were no words to describe Ed's shock over this statement. …To think that she would've killed herself… No, he didn't like to dwell on that thought, and he never would. But, after a moment to fully process it all, the rest of the Lieutenant's words had registered to him.

'My secrets of Flame Alchemy.'

 _My_ secrets.

While Ed still didn't completely understand what she had meant, it had proved that the two soldiers had known each other for a very long time, probably since before they had joined the military if it had been Flame Alchemy that had gotten Mustang into the ranks of the State Alchemists.

And it all made sense then. Her choosing to follow him and the loyalty and devotion she showed in spite of the lack of dedication he showed his ambitions, seemingly allowing his status as a State Alchemist to carry him a majority of the time. She had followed him to assure the secrets were not being put to improper use and had then joined him in his bid for the Fuhrer after the war in the hopes of not only protecting him but guiding him as well. Their bond had been formed of necessity before any others working under Mustang had even joined him, and thus it was the most powerful.

Ed knew the day would never come when anyone would see that bond break.


End file.
